Part 1: The Key in the Drawer
Warren had been gone for seventeen days when I found the key. Seventeen days. That was how long I had been walking through our house like a guest. His chair was still beside the window. His reading glasses were still on the end table. His coffee mug was still sitting in the cabinet where he had always kept it. I couldn’t bring myself to move anything. Then one Tuesday morning, I decided I had to start cleaning. Not because I was ready, but because I knew Warren would have told me to stop making excuses.
I opened the kitchen drawers: receipts, rubber bands, old batteries, takeout menus from restaurants that no longer existed. Then I pulled out the bottom drawer. Something underneath caught my finger. I lifted it. There was a small brass key taped to the underside, and attached to it was a tiny piece of paper with three words: BOX 417. Nothing else.
Warren had never mentioned a safe-deposit box. For forty-one years, whenever money came up, he told me the same thing: “We’ve got nothing but this house and my pension.” He was famous for being careful. He once argued with the electric company for forty minutes over an $11 billing error. He washed plastic bags, reused aluminum foil, and turned off lights the second he left a room. When our daughter bought him an expensive watch, he returned it the next morning, saying it was too much money for something that just tells time. That was Warren. Or at least, I thought it was.
The next morning, I went to the bank. The clerk took the key, checked the death certificate, and led me downstairs to open Box 417. Inside was a small metal box containing a thick brown envelope, a smaller black box, and a letter with my name on it in Warren’s handwriting: My dear Margaret.
My eyes filled with tears as I read his words: If you’re reading this, I’m gone. And you’re probably angry with me. You have every right to be. But before you decide that everything I did was a lie, please read the entire letter.
Related Posts
